Home, and yet out

Art is getting intimate. First there were house concerts, then public dance performances that take place inside people’s homes. Now there’s the home art show.

The first time I heard of it was Monday night. I’d met a woman at St. Ex who was planning to hold an art opening in her home to show off her collages, so I dropped by tonight. My friend and I got to her Columbia Heights house early, giving us a chance to ask a lot of questions. Turns out that the house’s main living spaces had recently been emptied—a roommate who’d owned most of the furniture had moved out—and that gave the artist in question an idea. She added that she’d looked into showing her work at a regular gallery, but many of them were located in old row houses like hers, and she thought, “Why go elsewhere?”

I was impressed with her moxie. The collages were arranged on walls throughout the dining and living rooms, and while each was accompanied by a short description about its meaning, the texts were covered with removable pieces of paper in case the viewer didn’t want her experience spoiled by an explanation. There were also Discmans placed here and there, for people to listen to the artist’s voice describing specific works of art.